Over the next four years, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) plans to evaluate thousands of industrial chemicals for their potential to damage human health and the environment.
Under the Chemical Assessment and Management Program, ChAMP, (otherwise known as the Montibello Agreement) the agency has until 2012 to complete risk characterizations for, and possibly regulate, more than 6,750 chemicals produced or imported into the United States in quantities greater than 25,000 pounds per year.
In August 2007, the United States, Canada and Mexico agreed to devise a North American framework for assessing and managing the potential risks of chemicals in broad commercial use. According to the EPA, ChAMP will provide "a more productive, focused, and strategic" system for chemical regulation than REACH. EPA intends to review and update an inventory of health and environmental risk data it maintains on more than 83,000 chemicals because many of the substances are no longer produced in or imported into the United States.
For more information on the ChAMP program, please go to www.epa.gov/CHAMP. (Source: FMA, FEMA)
